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Allied Solutions

Join the more than 1,200 credit union leaders, experts, and solution providers gathering next week at NAFCU’s 47th Annual Conference and Solutions Expo to discuss the most pressing issues impacting the industry. A wealth of education, innovation, and networking opportunities will energize you and your team and positively impact your operations and bottom line.

Be sure to schedule an hour on Wednesday afternoon to hear John Ulzheimer’s thoughts on Credit Scoring: Separating Myth from Reality. John, a nationally recognized credit expert, always gives fascinating insights on the credit union universe. This session, presented by VantageScore Solutions, is scheduled at 1:00 pm and repeats at 2:15 pm.

Credit union executives are facing more challenges than ever. In November 2013, Sundeep Kapur of Allied Solutions conducted a study on the challenges facing credit unions. The purpose of the resulting report is to:

In today’s economy, where loan volume might not be a sufficient source of revenue, you may be hoping that selective point of sale products will strengthen your bottom line while creating a true level of protection and value to your members. You may be offering GAP, MBP, credit insurance or debt protection – but are your numbers where you would like to see them?

Even in the strongest of programs, and with the most dedicated of teams, performance generally has some room to improve. Repeatedly asking people to challenge member objections or demonstrate value may no longer be effectively changing results.

Using a tracking system that allows you to compare opportunity to sales, at a branch or individual level, helps you determine if products are proving to be valuable to your members, and empowers you to improve performance in the following ways:

Introduce meaningful incentives that involve specific goals based on percentage, rather than the more common pay-by-unit method.

Obtain targeted information for performance reviews, and to help determine if coaching and training efforts are working – or where such resources should be refocused.

Identify gaps in your revenue stream, to guide new strategies: perhaps you are successfully selling MBP and GAP policies on new vehicle loans – but most of your loans are for used vehicles!

With the financial pitfalls of the Great Recession behind us, and security breaches becoming a common threat, members are more mindful of their personal finances than ever before. Because credit unions are a reliable and trusted source, they have the unique opportunity to educate their members about financial literacy. For expertise on where credit unions should focus this National Financial Literacy Month, we turn to our Preferred Partners:

60 Minutes recently had a very engaging discussion with Jeff Bezos, the founder and CEO of Amazon.com. Amazon started off as a place to purchase books and continues to innovate and evolve into a powerhouse that serves so many (and so well).

How Amazon serves up ecommerce to their consumers and facilitates the cloud for businesses is absolutely amazing. Jeff spoke about innovative new products, same day delivery for markets (including groceries), and even using drones to deliver items to your front door.

While the press really got excited about the drones, Jeff also spoke about three key fundamentals which in my opinion are destined to make Amazon even greater. These fundamentals are what credit unions need to keep in mind as we seek innovative ways to leverage big data, serve omnipresent consumers, and respond to the challenges of real-time fulfillment.